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Northern Canada help please

I'm looking at planning a trip over there next year and am wondering about a suitable National Park to visit. I want to paddle and hang and am happy to go anywhere, but I will need a place to hire a canoe as it's not practical to take my own (I'm in the UK). I want wilderness, not campsite.

I'm also wondering about the best time to go. For work reasons it would need to be between either end of March / early June, or beginning of July / mid October.

I've searched the internet and have some basic ideas (Yukon) but would appreciate more ideas or specific suggestions for trips. I'm not set on Yukon and am happy to look at other areas. I can do 3 weeks for a trip to include travel each way.

I was up in the Northland this summer near Hudson's Bay then east towards the Saint Lawrence. You'll get wilderness, believe me! We drove for hours, on dirt roads, without seeing another soul. You come across random 'villages' of mobile homes and the occasional mine and such, but very sparse...and BEAUTIFUL! Many of the areas have a spongy ground which resulted in spending a lot more time finding a good hang. The trees are relatively small and their root systems are shallow in the spongy ground. Not hard to push over by hand in many cases.

I'm sure this is just the area I was in, but wanted to give you a heads-up. Very, very pretty country inhabited by gracious people. The Native Tribes can be stand-offish, but even they will warm up to you given a little time. Listen to them! They know some great little tricks to surviving up there and they are happy to share their knowledge. The trick with them is to NOT ask any questions, they will clam-up immediately. Let them tell you in their time and they will tell you what they know as they believe it applies to you. Learned a great trick for cooking and eating bony fish. Mmmmm, good.

Wonderful place for an outdoorsman/woman. Really pristine and wild country and I can't wait to go back!

I just looked up the first nations in the area and the list is incredible. So interesting. My problem from here is that I can only see the whole area on google maps which isn't ideal so I'll have to get to the book shop for a proper look.

My other issue is which airport to fly to as I'll need a rental car / 4x4 depending on where I go

Only airport I've used was the one in Quebec City. Rethink the 4x4 bit if you are planning on long drives. We got lucky and they didn't have the car I had reserved, so I was forced to accept a Lincoln Towncar. That vehicle is so far removed from 'my style' that it's funny, but it turned out to be ideal. As I said, the area we were in had only dirt roads. They were unbelievably smooth for dirt roads, but they were still dirt. That big ol Towncar let us just cruise down the roads with very little discomfort. I'm still coughing up road dust half a year later, but my backside was comfortable while bouncing down the road. It would not have been as pleasant in a vehicle with a stiffer suspension and we would not have been able to cover as much ground as we did in 10 days in most other vehicles because we would have been driving much slower.

For bigger trees, hundreds of km of waterways, and as rough or easy as you are willing to go (including canoe rentals); look at or near Algonquin Park in Ontario.
Another awesome place to goto would be BC or Alberta (Rocky mountains ftw).
Keep in mind Canada has the largest contiguous forest in the world (yes, even bigger then the rain-forests of South America). Anywhere you go, it is easy to find 'native bush'. (Rule of thumb: make sure you are more then 3hrs from the USA/Canada border.)

Like Cannibal said, the soil is mighty thin near the tree-line, and the trees are accordingly smaller; but don't let that dissuade you.

I ride a recumbent.
I like to HAM it up on the CW.
I use Linux.
I play go.
Of course I sleep in a hammock!

As far as the time of year to come over I would strongly suggest Aug to Oct. as a better time than the spring..... unless your liked being slowly eaten,piece by piece by Horse flies, black flies and mosquitos. While there are ways to deal with them (bug suit,strong bug spray etc.) I find that it's the incessant noise that really drives me crazy.Those suckers can hum with with a lot of decibels.